A 60-year-old Virginia man was charged with allegedly smothering a child after he learned she was not his. He’s also said to have admitted using a hammer to bludgeon his 24-year-old wife.
Gloucester County Sheriffs were called to a home on Aberdeen Creek Road on Tuesday, July 7, where they found Corena Chambers seriously wounded and her baby daughter dead. Her husband had been missing from home; he was tracked down by deputies and arrested on Wednesday night after finding his car parked on Wahrani Nature Trail, 30 miles away.
Dennis Chambers has been charged with second-degree murder in the child’s death. He was also charged with malicious wounding after his 24-year-old wife was bludgeoned with a hammer, police say.
Dennis Chambers confessed to having used a hammer to hit his wife in the head “between two and three times,” according to court records obtained by 10 On Your Side, before using a cotton burping cloth to smother the five-month – old baby.
The papers show that family members and neighbors told investigators Corena had several extramarital relationships with a number of men; and she had recently told her husband that the baby was not his biological child.
A relative told the site Corena is now on a ventilator in hospital, fighting for her life.
One neighbor, who said he knew Chambers for twelve years, expressed disbelief that he could do anything violent but admitted that on the day of the killing he witnessed him acting strangely.
“I noticed he kept running from the front door to the end of the house. So I said, Well, something is wrong. And a thought rang in my mind, I said to myself: ‘Oh God, I hope that baby is not dead’… Later I find out the baby is dead.”
He said the couple were married four years ago and they never showed any sign of aggression although they had disagreements.
“I’m sorry for the baby, but I just can’t see that Dennis done anything,” the neighbor insisted.
“It would have to be proven to me, I’d have to see. But I guess time will tell what’s really happened.”
